World`s Collide

On the subway, 9 at night. I'm going home after working the late shift. Some twenty somethings are talking loudly and comparing cell phones. But most people are plugged into their i-pods, checking blackberries, or simply staring into space.

Suddenly this Chinese woman starts haranguing the older, WASP couple who are sitting right next to me. They seem like nice people - well dressed, well meaning faces in the way people of the boomer generation often have nice faces. Graying hair. Nice clothes. Liberal faces.

The Chinese woman wants them to read the crumpled letter she clutches in her hand. She looks to be in her early forties, desperate expression in her black, tired eyes, disheveled, a little shabby.

"Not a street person," I think. "But probably crazy."

Two lower front teeth are missing. When she talks I see the wet, pink gums surrounded by crumbling, brown teeth.

"No ask money, " she barks. "My son, what did to him not right! Not just! You read letter!"

The couple ignore her in the best WASP fashion. I'm familiar with the body language, because it is my own. The man and woman manage to look both oblivious and uncomfortable at the same time, like well bred people ignoring a fart.

But the letter lady either doesn't get this form of social communication, or she doesn' t care. I vote for the latter.

"Just read letter!" "All I ask" she blurts again. "I have money!"

Finally, the man realizes that something must be done. I can almost see the thought forming in his brain. "I'm the man here." "It's up to me." But I see that he's a little frightened nonetheless. He thinks this woman is crazy too.

"We don`t want to read the letter." he says firmly though still polite. "Please go away" he says, in the stilted way people of his/my culture cope with confrontations. Manners are everything. They're a kind of garment, without which, we feel somehow naked. His wife and I look off into space.

Letter lady gets the message and rounds on me.

"Lady, you read letter! My son! They do bad thing to him. Please. Look at my teeth, what they me too." She gestures vehemently at her mouth and shoves the grubby letter towards me. Now it' s my turn to handle this.

To see me you would not think this, but I am actually a veteran of crazy, aggressive, alcohol sodden subway people. In my 30 years or so of subway travel, I've been accosted by legions of them. I have listened sympathetically to drunks ranting on about politics, lunatics of all genders and ethnicities ranting or weeping, street people caging money, and lecherous businessmen looking for a good time. In a younger, kinder time I would have read her letter. I would have listened with sympathy. I would have wracked my brains for a way to help her.

But now, I'm sorry to say, my do-goodism is frayed. I know from experience that this will lead nowhere. I will read her letter. Her ranting will likely escalate the more attention I give her. I believe totally that she and her son have been badly mistreated, by whom or what I don't know. But I also believe that she is mentally beyond any help I might have to give or she wouldn't be accosting strangers in the subway with a problem that is likely too complex and too long standing to be handled by the average Joe on a train. I no longer have enough hubris to believe that I can solve anybody's problems. My own feel insurmountable.

This is what I tell myself anyway. I say to her, in my firm, awkward WASP way. "I"m sorry but I'm not reading your letter. I can't help you. I see that you need help, but this isn't the way you are going to get it."

"Just read! See!, " she pleads, bringing her rotting teeth closer to my face. I become hardened.

"Go away or I will press the security alarm," I say. "You are disturbing me and all the other people on this train. This is not the way for you to get help!"

(What is the way she will get help? I ask myself. But I don't know. Perhaps if I read the letter, there would be some clue as to where she should go, some loose end where the complicated knot of red tape can be grasped and untangled. But I don't know. And I am too tired to think about it.)

She glares at me with pure hatred. I wonder if she is going to attack me with her nails and disgusting teeth. Maybe she has a knife! Why didn`t I just go sit somewhere else sooner? But it`s too late.

``You stupid white woman!`` she spits. ``Stupid, selfish white woman! ...and then shouting, ``You no care `bout anybody!   So selfish!..

`This is true.`` I think, staying put. 

``Selfish, selfish white woman!` She rants. Though she is not actually shouting these things at me, but out towards the general audience of our fellow riders. I gaze stolidly back at those who are now staring accusingly at the pair of us. She is actually sitting beside me now. Our thighs lightly touch with the swaying of the train.

The i-Pod, Blackberry people return to contemplating their tiny machines. Others are now staring off into space. The least I can do is sit beside her.